


temporary stop (this is not our endpoint)

by florayeol



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Brief Depictions of Violence, Established Relationship, Hopeful Ending, Inspired by Final Destination, Knives, Mention of blood, Minor Character Death, Multi, Murder, Premonitions, Slasher, Thriller, like the people that die are unnamed, lots of panic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:48:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27174772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/florayeol/pseuds/florayeol
Summary: Not many people would ever get the chance to escape impending death, so upon experiencing a premonition, Donghyuck immediately dropped everything to try to warn and save his friends.(it doesn’t matter what was supposed to happen, because once you know your destiny you can begin to change it)
Relationships: Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Mark Lee
Comments: 18
Kudos: 41
Collections: Challenge #2 — tricks; treats; and terrors





	temporary stop (this is not our endpoint)

**Author's Note:**

> I had no idea I would end up writing this, it’s the absolute furthest thing from anything else I have ever done before lmao—it’s inspired by Final Destination and a little bit by Happy Death Day as well
> 
> Disclaimer: There is no permanent major character death, but Donghyuck does have a vision of him and Mark dying (in line with the premise of Final Destination), and there’s barely any actual scenes of violence but Hyuck goes through much life-or-death panic.

Pounding music, with bass heavy enough to vibrate through the sticky floors. Cheap strobe light projections, dancing across the walls of each packed room. The scent of sweat, alcohol, and weed mixing and permeating the air. All parties were made of the same formula, but the energy of Halloween and the presence of costumes covering everybody in attendance elevated anticipation and lowered inhibitions; the liveliness thrummed in Donghyuck’s body as he danced with his friends among the throng of people in the foyer of the house. The latex of his costume clung to him like a second skin, sweat fusing the two together and raising his body temperature until he could no longer ignore the suffocating heat. 

“Jaemin,” he shouted to a boy on his right, “I need a drink, taking Mark with me. We’ll be right back.” 

He tapped at the arm wrapped around his waist and turned around, meeting eyes with its owner, Mark, and mouthed a _come with me_ before gripping his hand and turning back to make his way out of the crowd. 

Donghyuck passed by two more of his friends as he went, calling out to one of them, “Renjun!” and reaching out to touch the boy, gesturing with his head when he grabbed his attention—first towards Mark and then in the direction of the kitchen. Renjun gave him an _okay_ hand signal and he took off, maneuvering Mark through the dancers until they reached the edge of the room. They cleared through the doorway and made their way to the kitchen, where the air was clearer and they could hopefully cool down a bit.

“You doin’ okay?” Mark asked as he watched Donghyuck grab water bottles for them from the counter; he pulled the boy closer as someone passed by behind him. 

Donghyuck took a second to gulp down half his bottle, and then grinned at him. “Yeah, I’m great, was just a ‘lil sweaty and wanted some water.”

He admired the water droplets running down the column of Mark’s neck as the other boy chugged his own bottle, internally thanking Mark for deciding to not wear a mask with his costume.

After they had finally stopped sweating, the two started to make their way back to the dance floor. Someone barreled through the kitchen doorway right as Donghyuck was exiting, though, causing him to trip and nearly faceplant. 

_“Whoa, are you okay?” Mark caught him, then raised his head at the person who’d run into him and gave a dirty look. “Asshole.”_

_Donghyuck regained his balance and stood back up, miffed but alright. “I’m fine—that was rude, but whatever.” He shook it off and interlaced his hand with Mark’s, allowing him to lead the way back to their friends._

_They inserted themselves back into the crowd with ease, and upon reuniting with their group Donghyuck released Mark’s hand to wrap his arms around Renjun’s neck, letting himself fall back into the rhythm of the music._

_A few songs later an unholy scream sounded by the front door, and Donghyuck whipped his head to his left just as the crowd lurched—shoving him in the opposite direction while more screams started erupting._

_“Whats going on?!” Renjun shouted and Donghyuck threw himself at Mark, desperate to not to lose him amidst the chaos of the people trying to run out of the room. He craned his neck and in between bodies he managed to catch view of a student crumpled on the floor, blood pooling around them. His eyes traveled back up to see the glint of a large knife, and a person standing over them wearing a mask. They made eye contact, and the person made a sudden move towards him._

_Flight kicked in with an intensity like never before as Donghyuck grabbed Mark by the wrist and bolted, trying not to cry as he only thought about getting out. Out. Out. They followed the flow of people racing to exit the house, and passing the kitchen entrance Donghyuck could see sliding doors leading to the backyard._

_Before he could reach them, though, a small explosion went off from behind, the blast sending them flying forward and into the floor._

_“No!” he cried, feeling the burn of fire against his skin as he scrabbled at Mark’s clothing, the two of them crawling out the open doors. He ignored the flames licking his shirt, allowing Mark to use him for balance as the two stood again then yanking him towards the gate that led out while chaos reigned around them._

_Three steps in and he heard Mark scream, feeling a violent tug up his arm as the boy fell; Donghyuck turned and a scream of his own ripped from his throat when he took in the halloween mask staring back at him. His head hit the grass and a searing pain erupted from his chest, leaving him to weakly reach out towards Mark as the world went black._

Donghyuck snapped back into himself, staggering as he tried to focus on the words being spoken to him while being assaulted with the images in his head.

“Whoa, are you okay?” he heard Mark say, who raised his head at someone and gave them a dirty look. “Asshole.”

The word triggered something deep, and Donghyuck snapped his head up towards Mark. His sympathetic nervous system kicked in as he looked at his boyfriend with wild eyes. He had seen something, and he knew what he saw. 

“Mark, s-something’s wrong,” he stammered, grabbing him by the collar and frantically looking at the rooms around them. His voice started to increase in volume with every word he spoke, and he started drawing attention with the way he was nearly shouting. “This, I just saw all of this—right now we went back to dancing and then someone had a knife there was a person with a knife and he started killing people and something exploded and we died Mark we died we were out in the—”

His voice suddenly dropped to a whisper. “—backyard.” Donghyuck paid no attention to Mark’s concerned words as he turned and hurtled towards where he intrinsically knew the back door was, crashing into the frame and letting out a torn-off screech as he stared through the glass in mounting horror, taking in the yard laid out in front of him—exactly as he had just seen in his head. The yard he had never laid eyes on before now. 

_No. No. No. No._ There was no time for thinking, there was no time—Mark tried to grab him by the waist and calm him down as he began to shriek, but Donghyuck merely thrashed and got louder. 

“It was real we’re gonna die we’re gonna die, we need to go we have to leave now we have to—Jaemin!” He babbled, tears streaming down his face he broke out of Mark’s grasp and entered a dead run through the crowd, barreling people over and shoving others out of the way with complete disregard. He launched himself at his friends, trying to grab at all three at the same time and yank them towards the doorway he’d just come from while also frantically scanning the crowd for the mask that was seared into the backs of his eyelids.

“Guys, Jaemin, Jeno, Renjun! We need to go—someone has a knife and we’re gonna explode, we’re gonna die we have to leave! Go!” He was crying, hyperventilating, bodily dragging and shoving his friends toward the door as they worriedly looked at Mark, who only looked back at them terrified while helping Donghyuck pull them out to the kitchen entrance where they could hear each other better. That’s where Jaemin put on the brakes, much to Donghyuck’s absolute panic. 

“Whats going on with Hyuck, what happened?!” Jaemin shouted in alarm, eyes sweeping over Donghyuck’s shaking, frenzied state. He ignored his friend’s increasingly incoherent cries and tugs at his arm and turned to Mark, who looked two seconds from a breakdown himself.

“I don’t know, we were standing right here and he started freaking out he said someone here is gonna kill us he saw some kind of accident—” 

“I saw it, I saw it all!” Donghyuck blubbered, “Someone enters with a knife and they’re gonna start killing people and there’s gonna be an explosion and we aren’t gonna make it, we’re gonna die, we have to go! Now! Jaemin, please, I love you, we have to go, we have to go, it’s gonna start we don’t have time...”

“Whoa, what do you mean you saw it, Hyuck it’s okay you’re okay nothing’s happening.” He reached out a soothing hand but Donghyuck smacked it away, grabbing him and shaking him in distress. 

“No you don’t understand, it was real! I saw me and Mark bleed out on the backyard grass when I haven’t been outside yet! How could I know perfectly what the back looks like if I’ve never seen it before?” He was reaching hysterical again, grasping at his friends and trying to move towards the door. “We need to go, please, I don’t want to die I can’t leave you to die, I can’t please please let’s just go,” he begged. 

The trio in their group looked at each other, and then again at their friend squirming in Mark’s arms, in a state never seen before. 

“Okay let’s just go,” Jeno spoke up, “one party isn’t worth it, something’s going on let’s just get Hyuck out of here and home.” 

Donghyuck sobbed in relief and pulled at Mark and Renjun’s hands, traveling at a speed just below a run as he sped out the back door and towards the gate, whispering apologies towards the unaware partygoers. 

The group made it past the gate and hustled down the sidewalk towards the apartments, Donghyuck hushing Renjun’s quiet complaints about his grip and Mark’s questions of concern while he just prayed they cleared the block safely. 

A minute later, they heard screaming coming from the address they’d just left. Donghyuck’s knees buckled and his friends faced the sound in horror as the screams grew in number and volume. Images flashed through Donghyuck’s mind and he began trembling again, trying to get up and push Renjun forward at the same time. 

“I knew it, I saw it, I was right,” he felt Jeno yank him into a standing position and they started moving down the street and away, away, away. A loud boom suddenly rang throughout the air and made them trip in surprise; Donghyuck clutched Mark with both arms and cried out. 

“Jaemin call 911,” Mark said shakily, “we gotta go, Jeno, your place is closest.”

The boys nodded and all five of them stepped off the sidewalk to take off in dead runs, not stopping until they reached Jeno’s building.

The quiet of the apartment felt deafening as Donghyuck wept into Jaemin’s arms on top of the living room rug, Jaemin whispering “You’re okay, it’s okay, we’re all safe,” over and over. The only other sounds came from the kitchen and where Mark stood behind the couch, making weary phone calls to parents before the inevitable news stories broke out.

When Jeno and Renjun padded in holding mugs of tea, Jaemin helped Donghyuck slowly sit up and grip his. It took a few minutes for the trickle of tears to subside, but after Donghyuck had managed a few sips of tea, Jaemin cautiously asked the unavoidable. 

“So, Hyuck, you said earlier...that you saw...you saw what happened tonight before it happened?”

Donghyuck stiffened, and Mark, overhearing the question, wrapped up his call and went over to comfort him. Once transferred into his boyfriend’s embrace, the younger slowly began to speak.

“I didn’t just see it...I—I lived it. Mark and I came back to dance again, a guy in the crowd started stabbing people, something exploded as we ran...our clothes were on fire, I felt it, we didn’t make it out, he caught us, I felt myself die—” his voice choked off and the room fell silent until Renjun spoke up, tears dripping down his face in rivulets as he threw himself at Donghyuck. 

“Whatever it was, Duckie, you saved us. I don’t know what would have happened if you didn’t drag us out when you did...I don’t want to think about...thank you, for working so hard to save us—I love you so much.” 

His words caused the reality of the night to sink in and the rest of the boys broke down as they sat together, the solid warmth of each others’ bodies a reminder that they were safe and alive.

The following days were a constant struggle to return to their regular lives, forcing themselves through routines and responsibilities while their school publicly mourned for lost students and declared determination to apprehend the murderer. Donghyuck refused to go anywhere without Mark and messaged his friends every hour—paranoia plaguing him like he was still stuck in that horrid night. 

Every day was a smidge better, however, and by the next weekend he had managed a genuine smile at a joke Jeno had sent to their group chat. Monday’s afternoon sunshine felt like a comforting blanket of light shining down, and Donghyuck appreciated its warmth as he and Mark headed back from their last class. 

They walked leisurely, hands joined together in a loose grip, but even so Donghyuck couldn’t stop his eyes from automatically scanning their surroundings every half-minute; he was doing his mental breathing exercises, though, and focusing on the feeling of Mark’s thumb slowly caressing his own. 

“Oh, babe, your phone’s ringing.” Donghyuck heard a noise go off suddenly and shook their hands to grab the other’s attention, Mark fumbling for it in his back pocket. 

“Hey, Junnie, what’s u—”

Mark stopped walking, the confusion on his face sending a nervous zip through Donghyuck’s body that persisted with every second that Mark stood silently listening.

He finally tilted the phone away from his face to speak, and Donghyuck held the front of his hoodie as he relayed, “The guys want to meet us at the cafe, right now...Jun says it’s really important.” 

The younger boy looked at him with uncertainty. “Why not at his and Jaemin’s place? It’s a lot closer than the cafe is.” 

“Yeah, he...he said they don’t exactly want to be at home right now.”

Their friends were sitting at a table by the time they arrived, differing levels of distress painted across their faces. Renjun greeted them and took a deep breath.

“Have you seen this news article that just came out? Hyuck, I—I needed to check something about it with you in person.” 

He spun his phone towards the seated couple and they leaned forward to look at the screen. The headline blared news about a home invasion two days ago with nothing stolen but three students gruesomely killed, revealing further down that their bodies weren’t discovered until a day later. Accompanying the article were memorial portrait photos, the students’ smiling faces gazing up from the webpage. Mark and Donghyuck stared in growing horror, until Donghyuck finally spoke.

“Wait...I recognize them,” he murmured, and Renjun’s head snapped up.

“You do too, right, so I’m not crazy—you saw them too, at the—” 

“Yeah,” Donghyuck confirmed, putting together what Renjun meant. “...at the party. They were there, so they must have also survived that night.”

“And someone just murdered them,” Jeno spoke. “We don’t know why, of course but just the timing…”

“It’s scary,” Jaemin softly finished. 

Donghyuck sagged back into his seat. It was true that there was nothing concrete tying the two events together, but with what had happened a couple weeks ago, these two big killings occurring so closely in time was frightening. Coupled with his unexplainable premonition, it all settled in Donghyuck’s stomach like a thick sludge. 

Renjun reached across the table, and Donghyuck took his outstretched hand. “We just wanted to tell you guys, and also check that you were okay...I don’t know what we can do right now, except stay safe.”

He quickly squeezed their joined hands. “Thanks, Junnie.”

It was almost evening by the time Donghyuck and Mark parted ways with their friends and continued their trek home, Donghyuck’s head full of thoughts about the other boys while he fiddled with his phone and waited for their _just got home_ texts to ping. 

“Hyuck, baby.” The call pulled him out of his head and he focused on Mark, who had stiffened next to him. “I don’t want to scare you, but I think someone’s following us.” 

Donghyuck’s blood turned to ice and he stared with wide eyes at Mark, whose own eyes were shaking as he pointedly continued to face forward. Trying not to hyperventilate, Donghyuck eked out a low “how long?”

“About five minutes, white baseball cap,” he mumbled. “...If we run to the plaza, I think we can lose him in the crowd.”

“Okay,” he whispered, and they took off. Donghyuck felt like his stomach was going to leap out his mouth, but they safely reached the lively throng of students and weaved through them before Mark suddenly pulled Donghyuck sideways into a dim space between buildings.

Crouched in the darkness, hiding from an unknown man, images flashed through his mind: his friends running from the party, the students splashed across the news website, the white cap behind him when he had chanced a glance back. He wanted to scream; the sludge in his stomach consuming more of his organs. 

His body suddenly weighed a thousand pounds as he looked at his boyfriend and croaked out, “Mark, I—do you think we...that night..what if everyone there was supposed to die?”

Without taking his eyes off the street, Mark answered, “Then we have to survive. You saved us once, Hyuckie, we can’t let you down now.” 

A white cap passed by—they waited, and then they ran.

**Author's Note:**

> And here it is!! I tried to go for the kinda energetic feeling that slasher movies have, and I hope it was a fun read ♡ 🔪🔪 
> 
> I think it’s so humorously ironic that one of the things I personally dislike most is open endings yet here I go writing one hhhh I rewrote it so many times trying to make it obey the word limit but also be something I was fully satisfied with, and I finally did it—perhaps open endings aren’t as bad as I thought ~
> 
> (in my mind, the boys protected each other and made it out just like they did the first night, alive and together)


End file.
